To the Very Limits

Humans know no bounds. Or so many think. People have been pushing themselves for thousands of years—testing their abilities, their courage and their persistence. Without such a drive to do better, to do more, many of our greatest achievements would be missing from the history books. And so would some of our worst failures. These alumni have gone to extremes—uprooting their lives and devoting years to a single passion—and have come out better for it.

Race Across the Sky

Matt Scotton ’91 uses himself as a human guinea pig. A physical therapist and athletic trainer in Newton, he tells his patients: “Our bodies are amazing. If we do the right things, we can adapt to almost anything.”

To prove it, he has pushed his body to the limits of human performance. Scotton is a “Leadman”—one of only two in Iowa and about 75 in the entire world. Last summer, he competed in a series of races in Leadville, Colo., that included a trail marathon, a
50-mile mountain bike race, a 100-mile bike race, a 10-kilometer run the next day and, finally, a 100-mile run six days later. The races—all on mountain trails—started at 10,000 feet and went up from there. But the scenery was spectacular.

“Even when I was exhausted, I would have a chance to look up from a trail and see this awesome vista,” says Scotton. “Every time I realized where I was, I would think what a gift it was to run and bike in this place.”

Scotton enjoys Iowa’s landscape, too, often running and biking in state and county parks. It gives him time to be alone with his thoughts, something he got used to as a teenager driving the tractor on his family’s farm. He calls running a form of meditation. “It’s a great way to see what’s going on in the world,” Scotton says. “You are your own power, your own motor, to see and do what you want.”

Scotton says he’s not a natural athlete. Before he started running and biking 10 years ago, he hadn’t competed in sports since high school. At Central, he majored in biology and focused on his work as an athletic training student, which led to his career as a physical therapist. But when he started running with some friends in Newton, he was quickly hooked. Now he runs about 30-40 miles per week and bikes about 5 to 12 hours, depending on the season.

To be named a Leadman, Scotton had to complete all five races under the specified time limits. For the 100-mile run—the monster of all trail races—he began at 4 a.m. with a headlamp and a small flashlight. He never stopped for more than three minutes at a time, except once to change his shoes after running through a mountain stream. He finished in just under 25 hours, earning the “big buckle” for beating the time limit by five hours.

At the finish line, his wife Sandy Koon Scotton ’91 was waiting for him with their two daughters. Sandy was part of his support crew, who provided food and water along the way and took turns running with him during the second half. After the awards ceremony, the Scotton family piled back into the car for the 13-hour drive back to Newton. They were determined to get the girls to swim practice by 6 a.m. “That was almost as tough as some of the races,” says Scotton with a laugh.

In June, Scotton is returning to Leadville for a second time, vying to become part of the even more exclusive club of repeat finishers. There, he will once again explore human performance, a field that fascinates him both as an athlete and a physical therapist. The races “have helped me relate to my patients and the physical and mental challenges they face,” he says. “Hopefully they can see in me an example of what I tell them every day.”

The experience at Leadville has helped him at work in another way, too. “If things are busy and I need to be there for 12 hours, well, that doesn’t seem like much of a challenge anymore.”

Luxury Jungle Life

When Jim Schulze joined the psychology department in 1968, he had a behavioral emphasis—and no international experience. But when a tour to the fledgling study abroad program in Merida, Mexico, was organized, Schulze jumped on board. “Permission to be gone from Iowa in the middle of February? Done,” he recalls.

The tour changed the trajectory of his life. On a side-trip to the enchanting Isla Mujeres, he ate fresh barracuda cooked in banana leaves and found a hermit shell. The tour leader, a fellow faculty member, was afraid he would never leave the island. “Her worry was probably not without some basis,” Schulze says.

He did leave Isla Mujeres, but he returned to teach and conduct research in Merida every few years until his retirement in 2007. Even then he didn’t want to give up Yucatan. Instead, he focused on arranging homestays for college students in Tinum—a Mayan town near the ceremonial site of Chichen Itza.

“One of the perks of being a college professor for life is that you get to stay ‘in college’ for life,” Schulze says. “This implies learning new things, having new teachers, making new friends, figuring things out and trying to tell others about them.”

Today, Schulze and his partner Lisa Rock ’87 spend their winters in Yucatan, splitting their time between Merida and Tinum. Rock fell in love with Yucatan as a student studying abroad there. When her plans for graduate school fell through, she returned for an extended homestay and volunteer work. “For the first time in my life, I had absolutely no idea what to do next,” says Rock. “I was depressed and terrified. Yucatan saved me.”

In the mornings in Merida, Schulze and Rock join neighbors for walks in a local park before buying fresh orange juice, bananas, papaya and mango. The capital of Yucatan, Merida is a busy city of nearly a million people. But its historic downtown and bustling markets—where you can hear the call of the elote (corn on the cob) lady and the clack of horse-drawn carts—still thrive. Rock and Schulze say authentic friendships with Yucatecans and the diverse music and cultural scene are highlights of their Merida life.

The rest of their time is spent in Tinum, where the couple lives in a compound of buildings with thatch roofs and stone walls. They have electricity and running water—though it often breaks down—and they sleep in hammocks, a comfort they miss during the rest of the year.

This painting of Schulze hangs in the psychology department.

Their work can be classified as ecotourism, though Schulze prefers the term “cultural explorer” over “tourist.” He believes standard tourism exploits the local people. “Ecology focuses on the environment: doing no harm, protecting it, perhaps benefitting or enhancing it,” he says. “A crucially important part of that environment is made of the other people who inhabit and share it with us.”

The visitors include students from Central and other colleges and travelers from many walks of life. Schulze and Rock work with a variety of Tinum families who host visitors. A homestay typically includes sleeping in hammocks, eating Mayan food, making handmade corn tortillas, helping in an agricultural field, learning to weave baskets and watching a local baker make bread in a wood-fired oven. Schulze says the host families are eager to share their lives, stories and hospitality. “They find value in being placed in the elevated role of teacher and expert.”

Visitors to Tinum discover that people can be very happy without the possessions and privileges Americans take for granted, Schulze says. But he hopes visitors move beyond this realization to another. “We recommend processing their Tinum experience in ways that enable them to recognize privilege and use it to impact change,” says Rock. That means doing what she calls the “slow but necessary” work of convincing leaders to remedy unjust systems and policies.

“Part of being human is learning to care about others,” Schulze says, “to understand their lives, challenges, hopes and fears.”

Roots and Branches

Mike Oliver ’74 was disappointed he didn’t get invited to the royal wedding last spring. After all, he is related to the British Royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II, as well as the long-dead French monarchs Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat. His 22nd great-grandfather is Prince John, the villain from the tale of Robin Hood.

In fact, Oliver is related to a lot of people. His long-lost family members include nearly two dozen presidents, including Obama and the Bushes, and Elvis Presley. Through years of intense research, Oliver has traced his family tree back to 100 B.C. So far, it has 5,000 members.

“A lot of people don’t even know who their great-grandparents were,” says Oliver. “I think
that’s sad.”

Oliver’s interest in genealogy began at age 20 while watching a talk show. Alex Haley, author of the novel Roots, was being interviewed about the extensive research he did for the book. “I was just fascinated that all those records existed,” Oliver says.

He began talking to his relatives, especially his great-grandmother, who was born in 1871. She lived to be 100, and Oliver was especially close to her. Although she was born to poor farmers in North Carolina, it’s her family line that leads Oliver back to royalty.

His relatives were helpful, but Oliver quickly learned he couldn’t always trust the family legends. “I made up my own little saying: There’s truth in every story, but not every story is true.” Instead, he looked for clues that would lead him to libraries and courthouses in search of birth and marriage certificates. “Then the Internet came along, and we hit the jackpot,” he says.

Oliver is a fan of Ancestry.com because it allows users to hook up with other family trees and take advantage of their research.

His research has dug up a lot of surprises in his ancestry. Oliver thought he was exclusively English, but he learned his ancestors came to England from France, and before that from Germany. He has traced family back to Syria, Israel and Egypt.

But it is American history Oliver finds especially interesting. He had three ancestors on the Mayflower. In one History Channel show about the Colonies, the first two people mentioned—John White of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke and Edward Winslow of the Mayflower, who gets credit for the first Thanksgiving—were both his ancestors. “I had chills,” Oliver says.

Another favorite ancestor of his is Captain Samuel Jordan, who came to Jamestown in 1610 and became the first elected representative in the New World. Oliver admits that Jordan was probably elected because he employed most of the local people on his huge plantation.

Through his research, Oliver has become a history buff, especially about the Colonies and the early United States. He’s come to the conclusion that everything—1,000 years ago and today—is motivated by economics. And he’s learned not to put today’s standards on yesterday’s people. “Things were different 200 years ago. We don’t know what they had to do to survive.”

Oliver advises newcomers to the genealogy field to start with their relatives, especially the older ones. They often know names and stories that can lead to new discoveries.

“It’s like a treasure hunt,” he says. “Every ancestor is a new treasure.”